'Real life Come Dine with Me is the next 'social eating revolution' ... increased well-being (King et al., 2017; Milligan et al., 2015) ... Do older adults want to eat with others? ... flats (participants preferred interviews) ... why they chose to eat with others and eat alone. ... 'it costs the same to go to a table to go and plonk the food.
Older adult’s experiences of social eating in Manchester: getting there, coming back and perceptions of benefits of social eating Dr Jenny Fisher*, Dr Laura Brown** and Dr Zinnia Mitchell-Smith* *Manchester Metropolitan University **University of Manchester
Social eating and eating solo in the news ‘Real life Come Dine with Me is the next 'social eating revolution‘ BBQ in Brixton, lemon tart in Leamington? Breaking bread with strangers is becoming a tasty feature of the sharing economy’ (Guardian, 2016) ‘Eating
alone: there's no shame in a table for one. More and more of us live on our own, so why should we feel embarrassed about being the lone diner?’ (Guardian, 2016)
‘Solo dining is a singular joy. Alone, you can eat what you want, when you want, as fast as you want’ (Frizell, 2016)
What is social eating? • Commensality - the practice of eating with others • ‘The founding fathers of the social sciences recognized commensality as a major issue but considered it mostly in a religious, sacrificial, ritualistic context.’ (Fischler, 2011:528) • Eating ‘out’, at home, at organised events, with kin, friends, acquaintances, colleagues • Social relationships (Simmel, 1997) and constructing and maintaining sociality (Fischler, 2011)
Social eating • Health benefits – Nutrition (Hays and Roberts, 2005) – reduced depression (Tani et al., 2015) – reduction in perceived loneliness (Skingley, 2013) – increased well-being (King et al., 2017; Milligan et al., 2015)
• Consuming food – increasingly individual behaviour that is fast and involves snacking and grazing ( Yates and Warde, 2016)
Background • If older adults want to eat with others, what are the barriers and facilitators ? • Do older adults want to eat with others? • Research to date with older adults – focused on nutritional aspects – malnutrition • Manchester – Age Friendly city (WHO, 2002) • Ageing in place – dependent on social connections, mobility and access to third spaces (Sixsmith et al., 2014)
The research • Social eating – in public, third sector and commercial spaces • Community-dwelling older adults • Focus groups and interviews • Thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006)
Talking to older adults • 4 focus groups with older adults across the city (access facilitated by Age Friendly Manchester) – Cook and share group (FG4) – Social activity group (FG1) – Social eating group in a pub (FG2) – Volunteers and staff (FG3)
• 4 interviews in a sheltered housing block of flats (participants preferred interviews)
Focus group method • Key questions – perceptions of what social eating meant – when and if they chose to eat with other people and who these individuals were – what was consumed (for example, light refreshments, dinner, – why they chose to eat with others and eat alone. – local opportunities for social eating and their views on what they enjoyed and didn’t.
• Vignette and posters
Posters - examples
Key themes • The meaning of eating with others • Getting there • Coming back
The meaning of eating with others • Socialising – ‘it’s just about people getting together with friends’ (male, FG2) (1) – ‘It’s nice, meeting people, when you live on your own it’s nice to eat with somebody’ (female, FG4) (2)
• New ways of cooking and recipes or cooking with ingredients instead of eating pre-prepared meals – ‘It’s a meeting point because what would you do if you were stuck in, I mean in my case I don’t do a lot of cooking, I do a lot of heating up.’ (male, FG4) (3)
• Temporal aspects – past, present and future
Getting there • The importance of a personal invitation (knocking on a door or a phone call) ‘I think somebody knocking on my door and saying come down on Thursday, like she did [referring to coordinator, laughing] She said are you coming down on Thursday so I did’ (male, FG4) (4) ‘There’s her at X (place name) yesterday, I said are you coming there tomorrow and she said I don’t think I’m allowed to go, I said you are and she said thanks for inviting me but I don’t think so, so I said, nobody’s going to stop you.’ (Female, FG4) (5)
Getting there • Posters – Content can be off-putting – ‘all welcome’ ? – Cost issues – too high or too low
• Low confidence ‘Feeling a bit out of it, not knowing anybody when they got there’ (male, FG4) (6) ‘I think it would take a lot more nerve for a man than a woman to walk into a group’ (female, FG2) (7)
Getting there • Health issues ‘I’m finding it difficult now with the arthritis in the fingers to eat with a knife and fork, so I look ungamely, it put me off at first but it doesn’t now’ (male, FG4) (8)
• Reluctance to eat with others ‘Well like I say, some people won’t come out, it doesn’t matter what you say, you can put it under their nose and they won’t’ (female, FG2) (9)
Coming back • Saving labour ‘I don’t even live here and I come for my breakfast every morning, I mean it’s better than cooking it isn’t it, have someone do it for you [laughing] I used to eat a very lot me I used to eat two bacon every morning, sausage all that’ (female, FG4) (10)
• Atmosphere – customer service and atmosphere ‘it costs the same to go to a table to go and plonk the food down as it does to go and place it down nicely and say something to somebody’ (male, FG3) (11) ‘One thing I’ve noticed is the room, you have small round tables and it has a café feel I wondered if that is something that makes it feel relaxed’ (female, FG2) (12)
Coming back • Social connections ‘And it was throwing it down, but I though I’ll go in case someone is there, you don’t know how many people are there’ (female, FG1) 9(13)
• Food choice and quality ‘ Well when I went out at first I found it very hard but I’ve found some places, the hospital is very good, we are going to hospital tomorrow so they’ll treat me to a meal, they do cabbage and cauliflower and potatoes and it’s lovely, they say put as much as you want on’ (female, FG4) (14)
Coming back • Something else…. and eating ‘That tea coffee and biscuits, dancing and company sounds great that now what’s put me off it says speaker and much more – the speaker would put me off, I’ve got to sit through that? No never’ (female, FG4) (15) ‘And H is bringing the sewing machine next week so we’ll do things for people’ (female, FG2) (16)
Conclusions • Social eating is about being with others • Barriers include the physical environment as expected but also confidence, health issues and ingrained eating habits and practices • Key facilitator – being invited and accompanied • Commensality and eating alone – linked to and inseparable from older adults’ histories, everyday life, social connections and their communities
Implications for policy and practice • Proactive engagement with older adults about cost and access to maintain social eating opportunities • Commercial model (pubs / Morrisson’s /the much missed BHS) is more flexible than the lunch club • Sustain community-based eating activities – assetbased and social enterprise models • Avoid stereotypical portrayal of older adults • Inter-generational cooking and eating • Widen focus of age-friendly spaces for eating to enhance wellbeing (e.g. a Manchester guide)
And some final words ‘It could be a day off from your husband’ (female, Int4) ‘There’s one place I used to go to; Thursday, Friday and Saturday in them temporary cooking buildings in Piccadilly and it was delicious Mediterranean for four pounds and I’d get off the bus once a month on a Friday and I’d be going dancing and I’d go and have my dinner and it was lovely, it was beautiful’(male, FG4)
Thank you for listening. Please follow us: @JennyCFisher @placeage Paper due soon and please visit the Ageing in Place website http://placeage.org/en/ Huge thanks to Professor Rebecca Lawthom for inspiring the idea for the research at a @MetMunch apple eating event
